Electron beam devices have many functions in a plurality of industrial fields, including, but not limited to, electron beam inspection (EBI), critical dimension (CD) measurements of semiconductor devices during manufacturing, defect review (DR) of semiconductor devices during manufacturing, exposure systems for lithography, detecting devices and testing systems. Inspecting samples within the nanometer scale can be done with electron beams generated by, for example, a cold field emitter.
A cold field emitter uses an electric field to provide the conditions for electrons to tunnel through an energy barrier to produce the electron beam. The electron beam can be focused on a comparably small spot with sufficient current to provide rapid, consistent data collection. A cold field emitter provides high brightness with a small energy spread and offers improved resolution for electron beam devices.
Because of the small spot size, mechanical instabilities of the cold field emitter can reduce a resolution of the electron beam device. Further, the cold field emitter can be heated periodically to repair damage and to remove molecules from an emitter tip. Heating the cold field emitter interrupts the operation of the electron beam device, thus reducing a throughput.
In view of the above, an electron beam device, a cold field emitter for an electron beam device, and a method for regeneration of a cold field emitter that overcome at least some of the problems in the art are beneficial. In particular, cold field emitters, electron beam devices, and methods that can provide at least one of an improved mechanical stability and thermal stability of a cold field emitter are beneficial.